INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters gave Cavaliers coach Mike Brown the strongest endorsements as players headed out to their summers on Thursday.

But other players, such as Tristan Thompson and Luol Deng, stopped short of offering an opinion -- much less an endorsement -- on the coach's future after the team finished 33-49 in Brown's return season, missing owner Dan Gilbert's prediction of a playoff appearance.

The team postponed the end of season wrapup with acting general manager David Griffin until Tuesday morning after player meetings ran long on Thursday, leaving the players to offer some final thoughts about Brown and where the team is headed.

"For me, I’m pretty sure Coach Brown will be back – which I’m happy about," Irving said after Wednesday's 114-85 victory over Brooklyn in the season finale. "Until anything happens, I’m not worried about anything with a coaching change or anything with an organizational change or players leaving, or anything like that.

"I finished the season strong, we all finished the season strong with one another, and it’s a brotherhood here. That’s the only thing I’m worried about – taking my game to the next level with my teammates.

"Being under Coach Brown, he’s a constant teacher, and I needed that as a person and a player. I’m truly appreciative of that because it’s only going to make me better in the long run."

Waiters made similar comments as players cleaned out their lockers.

“I’d like to see Coach come back,'' Waiters said. "We’ve been together for a year. The ups and downs, he stuck with us, we stuck with him. I know he wanted to win just as bad as we wanted to win. I don’t think we need any more changes right now. Especially learning the system already so we’re all good with that and I think Coach fits the team.”

Asked if he was confident Brown would return, Waiters said, "I’m confident, but you never know with this business these days, so I can control what I can control. I can’t control that. The only thing I can do is give you my opinion. I don’t know what's going on."

Thompson gave a diplomatic reply.

"At the end of the day, this season we played for Coach Brown," he said. "He's helped myself and other guys out a lot this year. At the end of the day, it's a front-office decision and that's what they get paid to do. They make those decisions for our team. All we do is go out and play hard every night.

"As of right now, Coach Brown is our coach. I'm going to speak with him and have our exit meeting, so he's Coach Brown."

Would changing coaches set the team back?

"I just play basketball," Thompson said. "That's what I'm here to do -- rebound, defend and play hard. I can't control who's on the team, who's here, who's leading us. I just go out and play every night and when training camp comes, the guys that are wearing the Cavaliers jerseys and the gentlemen that have their Polo suits on, that's who we're going to be playing for.''

Deng, a free agent who would seem like a long shot to return, was asked on Tuesday if Brown had gotten through to the team.

"I really thought we've figured it out in terms of us being better than where we were than in the beginning," said Deng, who learned much of his NBA defense from Chicago's Tom Thibodeau. "Toward the end, with about seven or nine games left before the playoffs, everybody in here believed we were going to make the playoffs. We didn't think too much what Atlanta was doing, we just tried to focus on us.

"I think the Atlanta game we didn't perform well, and I really believe after the Atlanta game we took a huge step back. It's definitely disappointing whether you are in the playoffs or not, you've got to play the game the right way.''

Veteran Jarrett Jack said learning Brown's defensive system took some time.

"I don't think it's something necessarily with Coach per se,'' Jack said. "Toward the back end of the season, you kind of saw what we were trying to implement at the beginning coming to a fruition at the end. ... We see the necessary level of commitment it takes and it's tough. But defense is all effort and night in and night out that is the one thing you can control.

"Some nights you are going to miss shots. Some nights you're going to turn the ball over and you're not going to play as well as would have hoped. But normally if you come out with that hard-hat mentality, then regardless of what's going on on the offensive side of the ball, defensively we're going to set the tone. If we all adopt that philosophy, it will make everything easier on us."

Varejao OK: Though he didn't play in the Wednesday finale, Anderson Varejao is fine, Brown said. The coach said he decided to give the veteran center the night off and told Varejao about it before tipoff.

No. 2 is No. 9: Irving finished the season with the ninth most popular jersey in terms of retail sales at NBAStore.com. He follows, in order, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Steph Curry, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul.

Lottery standings: The Cavs finished ninth in the lottery standings, meaning they have a 1.7 percent chance at the No. 1 pick and a 6.1 percent chance of landing in top three during the NBA lottery on May 20. There's an 81.3 percent chance they stay at No. 9.

Final stats: The Cavs finished the season ranked 12th in the league opponent field-goal percentage (45.2) and 16th in opponent points per game (101.5) after finishing 30th (47.6) and 25th (101.2) in 2012-13. They had the fifth-lowest average for opponent points in the paint (38.9) and had the seventh-lowest average in fastbreak points (12.1). Offensively, they ranked 22nd in scoring (98.2) and 27th in field goal percentage (43.7) after ranking 19th (96.5) and 29th (43.4) in 2012-13. … Irving finished as the highest-scoring point guard in the East (20.8 points) second in the league only to Golden State's Steph Curry (24.0). He was one of just six players to average at least 20 points and six assists per game -- joining Curry, LeBron James, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Isaiah Thomas. … Waiters was the top scoring bench player in the East, averaging 14.7 points in 46 games as a reserve. … Thompson finished with 36 double-doubles -- the fifth best total in the East. ... Spencer Hawes finished 10th in 3-point shooting at 41.6 percent.

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